Padecky: Sara Bei Hall still running after Olympic dream

As she continued to speak, as her enthusiasm colored every sentence with energy, Sara Bei Hall was not a 33-year-old woman anymore. She was not a mother of four girls. She wasn't a seven-time All-American runner at Stanford. She wasn't a two-time member of the U.S. world cross-country championship team. She wasn't even a four-time California high school cross-country champion at Montgomery.

She was Sara Bei. Kid. The 12-year-old kid who thought nothing of running a 4-1/2-mile loop around Spring Lake and Howarth Park. Who found a boulder along her trail and clocked her time while passing it. She was a kid then and as she spoke now, she was a kid again. Joy. Exhilaration. Goosebumps. All of those feelings know no age and are not confined to a time or place. Hall has run all over the world and it's not a stretch to say the kid in her was there in every race.

“Did you find running or did running find you?” It's a question that befuddles any athlete who has played with passion. Hall paused, then answered.

“I was destined to do it,” she said. “I mean, I'd play soccer, kick the ball and keep running after it.”

Kicking the soccer ball was incidental. The ball was more like a prop.

And thus we have defined why Hall is doing what she's doing now. She will be going to Eugene, Ore. It will be her fourth attempt at making the U.S. Olympic team for the first time. At the trials, Hall ran the 5,000 in 2004, the 1,500 in 2008 and the steeplechase in 2012. Yes, that's a lot of effort, but without the desired result. You'd think that would cause Hall to be bitter, disillusioned, resigned to failure.

That would happen, of course, if the child inside Hall gave up. Not a chance. The dream is still alive in her, the same kind of dream all kid athletes have.

It's the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded and a single wins the World Series. Or this free throw wins the NBA championship on the line. Or this pass wins the Super Bowl.

So The Kid is dreaming of what it'll be like to step on the track to run the 5,000 on July 7.

“I picture myself at Hayward Field (on the University of Oregon campus),” she said. “You can feel the energy of the crowd, energy of the field. America was once known for the shorter distances and the field events. Now we've got excellent distance people.

“I can picture the image, the starting line. It's basically a sprint, the 5K. The race starts. I'm hunting down people. You don't feel any pain. Those are the best races, when it's least painful. The endorphins kick in.”

And then the dream finds the payoff. Like hitting that home run in the bottom of the ninth of a World Series.

“For me, it's not thinking about winning. For me it's about crossing the finishing line. I am shocked, crying, dazed.”

I bring up the look Kim Conley had when she made the U.S. Olympic team in 2012, sprinting to the finish in the 5,000 at the trials, winning by four one-hundredths of a second. Anyone who wins the lottery knows that face. Anyone wanting to make the U.S. Olympic team wants that face.

“Her face was classic,” Hall said.

The dream is a classic. That the dream is happening at all is made all the more amazing by what happened on Feb. 13. Her dream took a hit. Hall has been training to make the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon. But that day in Los Angeles, a heat wave hit. Temperatures reached 90 degrees. Heat does not bring out the best in Hall, who's 5-foot-4 and 112 pounds.

“I DNF'd (Did Not Finish),” she said. “First time that's ever happened to me. When I saw my kids after the race I couldn't help but feel ashamed. Of all the races for them to be at, it had to be the first one I dropped out of. Later that night when my 5-year-old saw my tears I was trying to hide in the restaurant, she said, ‘Don't worry, Mommy. When we get home (Redding) we can go to the track and I'll help you run faster.'”

And thus an incredibly sad moment was replaced immediately by a tender one. It is a balance that Hall has come to embrace after all these years of running. It was a lesson that became necessary to understand after watching her husband keep chasing dream after dream, pushing the outside of the envelope to distraction. Ryan Hall is a two-time U.S. Olympic marathoner.

“There was always something gnawing at Ryan, always something greater to do. He found it was stealing his joy (of running). I never thought I'd be doing this as long as I've been doing it. Now I find I love doing this (running) more than I ever have.”

The Kid is now 33, a wife, a mother, coming off that February shock and she loves her sport more than she ever has. Sounds impossible. How could that happen? Because, while results may vary, passion doesn't. Passion remains constant. It's why so many of us play or watch a sport. It keeps us young, especially when so much of life tugs at us to go in the opposite direction.